Keeping Sabbath.

[0:00] We're going to read Mark chapter 2, verse 23, to chapter 3, up to verse 6. Mark chapter 2, verse 23, to chapter 3, and verse 6.

[0:17] One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the cornfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some ears of corn. The Pharisees said to him, Luke, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?

[0:32] He answered, Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar, the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat, and he also gives some to his companions.

[0:49] Then he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

[1:02] Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.

[1:13] Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, Stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, Which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?

[1:30] But they remained silent. He looked round at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

[1:44] Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Bit of an overreaction, don't you think? Or so it seems.

[1:55] Until, of course, you remember that what we're talking about here is the Sabbath. Sabbath. And the Sabbath was a widely observed, very precious religious practice of the Jewish people.

[2:13] And the law of God even encouraged them to think of it as something that, if violated or broken, was worthy of death. And so their reaction, though it seems, kind of over-top reaction to modern ears, was actually a typical reaction to those who openly violated the law of God.

[2:39] The Ten Commandments, literally ten words that were given by Moses to the people, but then expounded on by Moses and explained, were to be obeyed without question.

[2:52] Those who refused to obey them were worthy then of the curse that comes through the disobedience to the Mosaic law.

[3:04] So what has Sabbath got to do with us? Isn't it an Old Testament thing? Isn't it something that we think of as being part of the Old Covenant of Works, not part of the Covenant of Grace that we are under in New Testament days?

[3:23] Well, to respond in a simplistic way would be to mislead. There's a kind of yes and no answer. It's not a kind of politician's answer to that.

[3:35] It's just a reflection of what the New Testament is saying in terms of how we should be motivated in our love for Jesus and in our obedience to Him.

[3:49] There is an old letter of the law, Paul says, that kills. And there is a new way of obeying the law, which gives life.

[4:00] The problem is not really with the law. The problem is with those who seek to follow it. The reasons for doing that. If we obey the law of God just because we think we have to, or even worse, in order for us to kind of get some brownie points that might get us into heaven, we're going to fail miserably.

[4:21] But if we recognize that God gave His law not as a way to get into heaven, but as a guideline about how we could live to please God and express our love for God, then we are nearer to where we are meant to be when it comes to New Testament Christianity.

[4:42] We are looking at spiritual practices. So what we call, because we borrowed from Eugene Peterson, the unforced rhythms of grace.

[4:54] We are looking at those disciplines and practices that Christians have observed for many centuries that helped them to grow nearer Jesus. They don't make them Christians, but they are practices that are common to Christians because they provide us with a structure or a framework by which we can abide in Christ.

[5:18] And today we're looking at Sabbath. Last week, Mike started the series by looking at witnessing. Now, if you think of witnessing, there are two ways to witness, aren't there? There's one way which says, well, I'll tell you what I have to tell you because I've been told I have to tell you it.

[5:33] And so if you believe in Jesus, you will go to heaven. If you don't believe in Jesus, you'll go to hell. It's not my truth. I didn't kind of make it up. I've just got to tell you it.

[5:44] There you go. I've given you it. Now, off you go. Do with it what you will. Well, if you're on the other end of that kind of evangelism, I wouldn't kind of feel that you were being overreactionary to kind of reject it.

[5:59] It is hardly spoken out of love. It is hardly motivated by a desire for that person to come to know Jesus. It's just hitting them over the head with some truth in the hope that they might, well, not even in the hope because you probably, that kind of person is probably not even bothered, but just so that they've done their duty.

[6:17] Well, God, you told me how to speak, so I've spoken. There you go. Over to you now. If you were sharing that same gospel using those same words with a heart of compassion, it would make a tremendous difference to those who hear.

[6:31] But the same is true with Sabbath. Sabbath is a good gift from God that we all need. But we can, oh, it's Sunday again. Man, what a boring day.

[6:44] Or we can say, it's wonderful that God has given us one day in seven when we can all come together to worship Him, enjoy each other's fellowship, show the love of Christ, sing worship songs, pray together, and then go home thinking, wow, that was good.

[7:05] Now for lunch, which is also going to be good. And then time with the family. That's going to be good, hopefully. A few games at the end of the day, perhaps.

[7:15] End the day with some private prayer and reading. What a blessed day. How wonderful to have that day set aside by God.

[7:26] Imagine if I could kind of say to you, look, I'm going to give you a day off. You can relax, you can unwind, you can do a bit of reading, perhaps get a massage, go for a swim.

[7:40] How many people get massages in Whitby? I don't think many. Have some nice food, have some good fun together with your friends and family.

[7:51] And you can have this day once a week, every week, for all of your life. Do you think that would do you good? And when you think of the modern world in which we live, it's fascinating, isn't it?

[8:05] That the modern world, and I believe this is part of Satan's plan, the modern world robs us of that day.

[8:18] Some of us are old enough to remember when Sunday was legislated for in law, and you couldn't go to shops because there were no shops open. And you kind of, you know, TV was different.

[8:31] You had something called Stars on Sunday. Remember? Stars on Sunday. My, that was boring. Goodness me. That was boring. Unless you were of a certain ill, then it was fantastic, I guess.

[8:42] I shouldn't really say it was boring. For me, it was boring. Yeah. And there wasn't much to do. Because people observed it differently. Now understand, I was a non-Christian.

[8:54] You know, it was boring. And then along came a band called the Smiths. Have you ever heard the Smiths? Yeah, well done. My wife, she loves the Smiths.

[9:06] Yeah. And they wrote a song. Every day is like Sunday. Every day is silent and gray. Well, for me, as a young kid growing up in South Shields, that's what Sunday was like.

[9:22] Silent and gray. My goodness. And you didn't want Christmas to fall on Sunday. That's doubly a way of spoiling your day. So, they changed things.

[9:36] They made it different. And they got rid of Sunday trading rules. And then they said, don't worry, we won't force any of you to work.

[9:49] Only those who volunteer. Yeah, right. Yeah. Then the contracts change. Then you have to work. And then for a lot of people, Sunday is just like any other day.

[9:59] If they happen to have it off, they have it off. If they don't, they don't. That's just the way it is. And so they lost the concept of a special day. When society loses the concept of a special day, then society begins to become ill.

[10:15] Do you know, they did a study in the United States where they observed the Seventh-day Adventists who still practice Sabbath on a Saturday. They observed them over many years and they discovered, interestingly, that Seventh-day Adventists, on average, live 11 years more than the general population.

[10:33] And this is really interesting. If you live a life of 70 years and you always take a Sabbath day off, how many years do you gain?

[10:47] 11 years. Isn't that interesting? Those who observed the Sabbath day lived longer generally than those who didn't. And they got back exactly what they give to God.

[10:59] Now, I want you to bear that in mind as we go through this teaching of Jesus on Sabbath, as we observe what the Bible says to us about Sabbath. So let's see the next slide, please. How did Jesus practice a Sabbath?

[11:14] Well, here Luke says, He went to Nazareth where he had been brought up and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom and he stood up to read. Now, this is interesting.

[11:25] Jesus brought up a good Jewish boy. Going to Sabbath was something the boys did from very early on. The girls didn't have to go. It wasn't required, but the boys had to go. He would go to learn the Scriptures, to learn by heart the Torah.

[11:41] By the time he was about 11, he would have learned it by heart. And then as a man when he was growing up, because he'd learned the Torah and then he'd been through rabbinic school and he'd become an expert in the law, a rabbi, he was ready to teach when he went to the synagogue.

[12:00] He, like lots of male Jews, had that right if they were so instructed to stand up and teach from the law. Going to synagogue on Sabbath was his custom.

[12:13] That's where you'd find him. And again, that's just a little challenge to us, isn't it? Is going to church, going to worship and going to fellowship our custom?

[12:27] It ought to be a custom. Now, none of us like customs all of the time. We like to do it because we want to do it, but actually customs, traditions provide us with a framework.

[12:38] They provide us, but they don't remind us, oh, it's Sunday, I go to church, I worship. That is my custom. And my custom will allow me to do that even when I don't necessarily feel like it because it's raining outside or it's cold in church or it's, you know, I don't know, football's on.

[12:57] Whatever might be the case. Thankfully, football's not on this early, so you know what I mean. Let's look at the next scripture. Jesus says in Mark 2.27, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

[13:14] Now, we'll come back to this, this controversy. The way Jesus kept Sabbath was controversial. Some people kind of really got annoyed at him.

[13:25] He irritated them because his whole approach to Sabbath was different. The majority of people around him were taught by the scribes and the Pharisees to observe Sabbath scrupulously and not deviate from the traditions that were given to them by the elders.

[13:43] So it was a case of, this is the way you are to observe it. These are the rules that you are to follow and you must not deviate from them. And they included things like, if you're going out for a walk, how long the walk should be?

[13:58] A mile and no more. Because if it gets longer than a mile, then you're extending your effort too much and it becomes work. And you must not work on the Sabbath day because God said that in Exodus 20, didn't he?

[14:13] You mustn't work on the Sabbath day. So a little stroll is not work, but if you go beyond that little stroll, it becomes energetic, too energetic, and it works. For some of you, that's a relief.

[14:24] But for those of you who are walkers, that's like really restrictive. Man. Now, where does it say that in the law? That you must only go? Well, it didn't say it, actually. It's just that the Pharisees, in their keenness for people not to disobey the law, then made more laws to protect the law, just in case you needed to know what work was.

[14:47] So, you're walking past the ditch. You see a, I don't know, a sheep that's fallen into the ditch. The little thing is bleating. You think, oh yes, I need to get this out.

[14:58] The Pharisees say, that's okay. Throw a rope down, pull it out. That's fine. Or you're walking past a person who is ill, really, really poorly, desperately in need of help.

[15:10] You reach out to help that person. Oh, that's a work. Because you've tried to help that person. You've got involved in some kind of activity, which might require you to travel a greater distance, to get them food or bread or whatever, or might require you to bind up their wounds.

[15:29] That would make you unclean. And so, you've got involved in work, and you've broken the Sabbath law. And even worse, you deserve to die. So, Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, just for fun.

[15:45] Yay! I know I'm going to upset those Pharisees. I'm going to heal some people. He did. Deliberately did. They were watching him to see what he would do. This poor man who's enfeebled and weary and damaged by disease.

[16:02] Jesus reaches out to heal him, knowing what they were thinking. To provoke them to think. To remind them of the hypocrisy of their behaviors.

[16:12] Is it better to do good on the Sabbath, he asks, or evil? What is the Sabbath made for? Was it made to restrict people and to hold people back?

[16:25] Or was it made to help them to grow, to rest, to be refreshed, to spend time reflecting on God, to learn of God, to experience the grace of God, and to be comforted?

[16:42] Was it made for man, or was man made for the Sabbath? Jesus said it was made for man. It was made to do you good, not harm.

[16:53] It was made to give you freedom, not restriction. It was made to bless you and not curse you. And that's the principle that we should always apply when it comes to Sabbath.

[17:06] Is this blessing me? Is this helping me? Is this causing me to grow? Next slide, please. So the first thing we need to notice is that Sabbath is a good gift from God.

[17:19] A very good gift from God. If you've got Scripture, turn to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 31. And we'll read into chapter 2 and verse 3.

[17:31] So Genesis 1, 31 comes at the end of all of that kind of discussion of how God created the heavens and the earth. And then in verse 31, it says, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

[17:46] Now, just an aside here, notice, it doesn't say it was perfect. And there's good reason for that. Sometimes we read little books that are written for Sunday school children and might say, God created a perfect world.

[18:01] But he didn't. He created a very good world. Because he created the world in what has been called a cosmic war zone, in which Satan and his demons were engaged in conflict with the Almighty to control mankind.

[18:24] It is not good for man to be alone. For a time there was something not good that God corrected.

[18:36] And then Satan came and tempted. That's not good. Tempted Adam and Eve, and they fell. But it was a very good world.

[18:48] And God created work within a very good world. He created childbirth within a very good world. And remember when Eve was cursed, she was given greater pain in childbirth, which implies that she would have still had pain in childbirth.

[19:07] I mean, you just have to look at the anatomy to give birth. Well, we won't go into that, but you know what I mean. It's going to be painful. But it would be greater pain.

[19:19] And in a world of work, in a world where it was possible to have some pain, God said this, verse 31. God saw all that it was made and it was very good.

[19:32] And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Well, it was like any other day. Evening, morning, start, it ends with rest. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

[19:44] By the seventh day, God had finished the work he'd been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. Notice that. He rested. God rested.

[19:55] Was God tired? Does God get tired? No. He who watches over you will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord never gets tired. So why did God rest?

[20:06] Rest. Well, because it was finished. That's a good reason to rest. It's like, you know, if I was to make that table, which would never happen, but if I was to make that table and I was proud of it, I would take a step back and think, well, I've done a good job there.

[20:24] I would appreciate what I'd made. Come to an end of it. I've rested. So resting is not just because you're tired. It's about appreciating your labor.

[20:35] You've worked six days. You get to the end of your six days. You think, I've done enough this week. I'm going to rest. Notice those words, men. Men are particularly bad at this. I've done enough this week.

[20:48] When does your boss ever tell you that? Keep going. Work hard. Work massive amount of hours a week. Run yourself into an early grave.

[20:59] And you say, well, that's okay. I don't need to rest. Really? You don't need to rest? God rested. But you don't understand my life. My life's so hard, so difficult. I've got so much to do. God rested. God is speaking to us about this and saying, look, every so often, you have to take a break.

[21:16] You are not a machine. You are not made to run and run and run and run. At the end of each week, the end of six days, you must rest.

[21:27] Now, a little aside here. You might say, well, I don't get Sunday off. Fine. Find another day. Sabbath does not mean Saturday. Sabbath does not mean Sunday.

[21:38] Sabbath means rest day. Stop and rest. So if you can't get Sunday, get a Sabbath day. But the pattern that he is establishing here is that every human being created like God needs to take one day in seven at least, at least, one day in seven to rest.

[21:57] Why do I say at least? Because there's also that thing called evening and morning the first day. Evening and morning the second day, etc. That is to say, you're meant to sleep as well.

[22:09] Now, again, we've got wonderful things in this modern world. The modern world has given us so many things to enjoy. Except this thing called artificial light. Actually, that's a really good thing.

[22:21] Except we can keep the artificial light on until two in the morning, three in the morning. And then if you add your phone to it, you might find you get three or four hours of sleep and then you're up again for work.

[22:33] You keep doing that every day, you're on course for serious ill health. It's not just lack of sleep, sorry, lack of work.

[22:45] Sorry, it's not just work rather that kills us. A lack of sleep can do it too. So God is saying to us, I have built rest into your everyday life.

[22:58] You are meant to rest as well as work. And then he says, and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he'd done.

[23:11] In other words, Sabbath is not just, oh, I'll have a holiday, I'll have a rest day. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to lie until 12. Then I'm going to get up and have lunch.

[23:21] Then I'm going to watch eight episodes, back episodes of Friends. And then I'm going to listen to some music, watch some football. And then I'm going to drink a bottle of wine and I'm going to chill out and then go back to bed.

[23:36] Well, that's a rest day except maybe for your liver. But it ain't good because it doesn't include God. God give us the day of rest to spend some of it with him.

[23:51] He blessed it and he made it holy. Holy. Next slide, please. So, keeping Sabbath is a good gift from God.

[24:05] Secondly, keeping Sabbath is a commandment, not just a good idea. Next slide, please. You'll know the commandment. Ah, oh, actually, really good point here.

[24:16] Dan Allen has written a wonderful book on Sabbath. If you get a chance, write that down and get hold of the book. It's a really good book. He says, we will never know Sabbath the light unless God delivers us from drowning in the noise and grime of our soiled days.

[24:33] Now, remember the young lad in South Shields who thought every day was like Sunday, every day was silent and gray, i.e. me. The problem was not Sabbath. The problem was my heart.

[24:44] My heart didn't long for God. My heart didn't desire to worship God. My heart didn't give much attention or much time for God. And therefore, I was only interested in filling my days.

[24:59] But I learned that as I tried to fill my days without God, they became increasingly soiled days. because God, our Creator, has created us to live in a way that is healthy and wholesome and good for us.

[25:13] And if we choose to abandon His ways, then they become increasingly damaged by sin. And have you noticed something about getting everything you want?

[25:26] Well, here, just think like me. This is my problem every year. In about January, Lisa gets excited about Christmas. Yeah?

[25:38] And she begins to build it up in her mind. And I notice the post gets very busy and things start to arrive and the wardrobe gets kind of packed on top and everything else.

[25:48] And then the big question is going to come in about September. What do you want for Christmas? And I think, oh, that's a good question. That's also the way I respond now.

[25:59] I don't want to sound like I'm not interested. So I'll say, that's a good question. I'll think about it. She's heard that before. She knows it's going to get to November and it's still the question. What do you want for Christmas?

[26:11] You know my problem? I don't need anything. I've got, yeah, good. I've got everything I need. And I can't now, I've got to the point in life where I can't even think about what I would like to have because I really, no, I'm not bad bothered.

[26:28] I need a motorcycle. I definitely do not need a motorcycle. I can hardly walk in a straight line so driving a straight line is never going to happen. And the problem is when you get everything you need and especially when you get everything you want, it becomes less interesting.

[26:45] It becomes harder to be satisfied. You become bored. Now imagine that morally speaking. Morally speaking, you've kind of kicked off the traces. You've abandoned God's way.

[26:56] You're kind of going to give yourself to sex and lust and desire and drunkenness and materialism and you've given, you've got everything you want. Well, you observe these people who do that.

[27:11] They're miserable. They increasingly need to go and get some synthetic drug to make, give them a high because life is so dull and so weary and dreary and they've tried it all and they're still not satisfied.

[27:25] That's the problem with listening to the devil, isn't it? You shall become like God knowing good and evil as if that's a good thing. Knowing evil means not just kind of knowing what it is but experiencing it and it just numbs your soul and it robs you of a conscience and you become dead inside.

[27:47] Your days are soiled and you cannot call the Sabbath a delight. The heart has to be changed in order to enjoy Sabbath properly.

[28:03] As we come to know God and worship God, Sabbath becomes a delight, not a law to be obeyed. Next slide, please. So we receive this word in that spirit.

[28:18] Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter or your maidservant or, wait for it, next one, oh it might not move, there you go, nor your animals.

[28:39] So if you've got like, you know, that's good, I don't need to walk the dog maybe, oh no, no, it's a walker. They're your work implements. Nor the alien within your gates for in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.

[28:55] Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. There you go, it's in the law. We've got to do it. Except, let's see the next slide. The preamble to the law begins like this, and God spoke all these words, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

[29:15] The reason why you obey the law is not because you want to earn God's brownie points, but the reason you want to obey the law is because God has rescued you from slavery, from sin.

[29:27] The Son of God has set you free. And now you want to know how to please him. So you say, well, I'm not going to put any God before him. I'm not going to bow down to a statue of an inferior God.

[29:40] I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to dishonor my mother and father. I'm not going to murder or steal or kill. And that's a problem with people who say, well, the Sabbath is no longer applicable.

[29:53] Well, that's like saying killing is okay then. Stealing is okay now because we're not under law or under grace. Of course, you know that's not true. But it isn't do I keep Saturday or do I follow rules?

[30:07] It is my maker tells me that it's better for me if I live my life taking adequate rest because he knows better than me how to live a healthy life.

[30:19] And I want to honor him by doing that. And my maker wants me to give attention to him, to do it at least one day in seven. And I'm going to do that because he knows it's good for me and I know it's good for me too.

[30:34] You can't live in relationship with somebody and ignore them all week, can you? You try and do that with your wife or husband. They aren't going to be very happy, are they? You can't live with God if you're going to ignore him or if you're going to be too busy for him.

[30:49] I haven't got time. I'd love to go to church, but I haven't got time. How many times do we hear people say that? I'd love to be able to spend time reading the scriptures, but I'm so busy, you know.

[31:01] You can't do that without damaging your soul. That's why Sabbath is good for you. But Sabbath is a commandment, not just a good idea. None of us can opt out because we think, well, we're special.

[31:15] You're not. We're not. God says, I want you to devote time to me, and I want you to intentionally and deliberately at least one day in seven.

[31:25] Next slide, please. So Jesus modeled the keeping of the Sabbath for us. He modeled it. He showed us how to do it.

[31:37] We've already seen one scripture that he showed us how to do it in, and that was when he went to the Sabbath and he read it. And I just need to move on with my notes because I'm nowhere near where I was, but never mind.

[31:50] So let us think of the manner in which Jesus kept the Sabbath. We've already seen as a good Jewish boy, he went to the synagogue and he learned the Torah and then he eventually began to speak the Torah.

[32:08] In other words, if we want to do what Jesus did, we spend time, dedicated time in a week to study in scripture and to get to know God better.

[32:20] I mean, in any kind of relationship, the relationship will only grow and develop if you get to know the person you're in relationship with. That's why the scripture is so wonderful, such a blessing.

[32:31] The scripture is meant to be received as a love letter from God. It's meant to be received as a manual, a guidebook. You know, we live in a day of self-help.

[32:44] People provide all kinds of guidebooks about healthy eating, healthy living, all of these things. They're good, aren't they? A lot of them are very good and we do well to take those in. But the Bible is much more than just that.

[32:58] It's not just teaching us how to live well. It's teaching us how to prepare for death well. It's teaching us how to treat other people well. It's teaching us how to please our God.

[33:13] And so we spend time on the Sabbath day as Jesus did, reading, learning the scripture, in fellowship with God's people, worshiping God. That's how he kept it.

[33:25] We already noticed his controversy, but what motivated Jesus in his keeping of Sabbath was, it is made for man. And therefore, as I have opportunity, I will do good.

[33:39] If that involves healing somebody, I'll heal them. If it involves feeding my disciples with some heads of grain when I'm walking through a field, I'll do that too. Because he was criticized for that one. Why are you allowing them to work?

[33:51] They're pulling off their heads of grain. He said, look, David did this. He had bread. Bread that was not legal for him to eat because the principle of operation was, this is good for man.

[34:04] So I spend my Sabbath day doing good for others. That's why it's better, I mean, some of you enjoy being on your own and some of you have no choice, but actually, it's better to spend Sabbath in community, together, as an opportunity to do good for others.

[34:24] That's how Jesus kept it. But crucially, he said, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He's in charge of it. He's the one we are to focus on and worship.

[34:35] He is the one we are to do obeisance to. That's not hard. Here's Sunday, what shall I do? I shall spend time with others to do them good.

[34:48] I shall spend time in fellowship. I shall spend time resting, and I will spend time worshiping. And within the parameters of those things, it's lords of freedom.

[35:02] Lords of freedom. And next slide, please. So then, how should we keep Sabbath? Just to repeat, next one.

[35:12] Four things need to happen. You see, there's only three things on there. That's because there's a little bit of a trick in the middle. The first thing we do is to stop. If it can't be Sunday, like some of you, because you're working now, you need to find it there when you stop.

[35:28] Because Shabbat means stop. But it also means rest. Stop. Take a deliberate, intentional moment to say, work day has ended, work week has ended, I need a rest.

[35:48] Don't fill your rest day with work, or you'll get exhausted. All right? Whatever your rest day is. Don't work all of the time. You were not built to do that.

[35:59] If you do, you might end up with premature illness or death, and that was not God's will for your life. We live in a society that kind of prides itself on praising those people who spend hours and hours in labor.

[36:14] Why not be countercultural and just say, you know what? I'm going to rest. Poor Kia Starmer got criticized, didn't he, before the election because they discovered that he took Friday evening off. You know why he took Friday evening off, don't you?

[36:27] Because he's married to a Jewess, and she observes the Sabbath, and Sabbath for Jews starts at six o'clock on Friday and ends on six o'clock on Saturday. And people said, how day is the Prime Minister of England?

[36:39] He's not taking a day off. Well, it would be dreadful to have a Prime Minister who didn't take a day off. You know, many of us might have admired Margaret Thatcher and her famous four hours a night, but she got dementia in the end.

[36:52] Not saying it was deliberately down to that, but a culmination of not resting and relaxing does serious damage to our health. We need to rest.

[37:04] We need to stop. We need to rest. Thirdly, we need to delight. Shabbat leads to menua. Menua in Hebrew means to delight.

[37:16] Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Why? Because God blessed it and God wants you to worship Him. to delight. You have a day to spend with God.

[37:27] That's why it's never just silent and gray. Wow, it's Sabbath. Whatever my Sabbath is, whenever it is, I have an opportunity to spend time in my day, intentional, marked out time.

[37:44] I have time to spend with God. Now, you may take lots of rest. You may stop from work, but if you are not spending some of that rest time with God, you are blighting your soul to a degree.

[37:58] We are most healthy when we are most holy. We are most healthy when we remember our Creator who give us this day to bless us.

[38:09] If we leave Him out, it isn't Sabbath, it's just a holiday. And then, I said there was a fourth one, but let's see the next slide. The only parameter that is to guide our Sabbath is delight, said Dan Allender.

[38:24] Will this be merely a break or a joy? Will this lead my heart to wonder or routine? Will I be more grateful or just happy that I got something done?

[38:36] And that's a question. It's not just stop. It's not just rest. Will it bring me joy? How do I work out whether my Sabbath will bring me joy?

[38:51] What do I avoid that my Sabbath does not bring me joy? Here's a good thought. Having an argument with your wife, that will stop you having joy.

[39:02] We never do that, so I can use that one. But even things like fasting on a Sabbath day, probably not a good idea.

[39:13] because food can bring you joy. If you want to fast, choose another day. It might work, but there's something. Going on a 10-mile run.

[39:24] Well, I realize there are some people that brings joy too. Yeah? There are hospitals and clinics that you can visit for that condition. But my suggestion is 10-mile runs, keep it to another day.

[39:38] It's just going to exhaust you. It's certainly not going to give you, you know, well, it might give you pleasure. Who is to know? But good food, drop of wine, if that's your tipple, or Coca-Cola, if you really must.

[39:51] Certainly a pot of tea, an ice scone. I'm not sure about watching football. I do that occasionally, but football very rarely gives me joy.

[40:03] If I was a Man City fan, I'd have a different view. But supporting Newcastle, it can be an onerous problem on the Sabbath day. Spending time with your kids, being romantic with your partner, yeah.

[40:21] If it brings you joy, why not? God wants to fill our life with joy. Life can be hard, but he says, hey, I've given you a precious gift, a Sabbath, where you intentionally set out to have joy.

[40:42] And last night, think of last, on Sabbath, we need to worship. That's principally what it's for, to remember your Creator, to remember your God, to give him space, to give him time, to give him yourself.

[41:04] He is Lord of the Sabbath, so everything that I have in life, everything that I am, must bow to that Lordship in adoration and praise.

[41:16] Not because I have to, but because I want to, but because by living Sabbath, I live out a time, a moment punctuated in my week, when heaven comes to earth, when I can have joy and thanksgiving and reflect on all of the good things God has given me, because he loves me.

[41:42] God has given you, because he loves you. Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy. Spend it in fellowship with Jesus and with his people. Enjoy it, because it's his precious gift to you.

[41:57] And by giving yourself the Sabbath, you will be living a better, healthier, and holier life. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.